This passage gives us, the reader, an all-encompassing view of the narrator and his characteristics and relationships with other characters in the book. The narrator shows us through his style of storytelling how he perceives the world around him. Conversely, we can deduce from his style his position in the world of this text. There are two important facets to the narrator that come through in this extract. Firstly, the narrator develops an air of detachment emotionally from the events described. Second of all, a comical and sometimes ironic tone develops, and this is closely tied into his emotional neutrality.
In this passage, the detachment of the narrator is quite apparent. The images in this passage contribute to this effect. For example, his image of Angela Vicario seems to be based on the second-hand news from his sister. This does not lend to a sense of accuracy in terms of emotions, as thisidealized image? (p101) relies on his emotional sensibility, which throughout the novel is shown to be very dull. Furthermore, the images of Angela we get in the rest of the passage are not very inspiring. All that is conveyed from Angela to the narrator isRegards from your cousin? (p101). This in fact is not even an image, which shows that the narrator's image of Angela is based in large part on his expectations of her. In this we can see that the narrator is unreliable in nature, as he does not portray the true spectrum of emotions that Angela Vicario is feeling. The narrator is not only detached from the emotions of other characters; he is removed even from the comedy in the lives of others. The affair with the fishflopping about in the bedrooms at dawn? (p102) is an obviously funny scene, yet the narrator describes it with much indifference. All he does is give a straight description of the scene, with no emotional vocabulary suggesting any type of mirth. As he does with other images in the extract, he leaves the description without any subjective additions.
